Anonymous Industrial Walkabout

Underwater (2020)

Kristen Stewart tries to escape from the bottom of the ocean (seven miles down!) in Underwater, a movie that looks and sounds a bit like Alien, but isn’t nearly as good.

Kudos to director William Eubank for getting things off to a hot start with an earthquake that cripples a deepwater drilling operation in the Mariannes Trench.

This handy disaster introduces us to Norah Price (K-Stew), a plucky technician with a strong survival instinct. Norah and a handful of crew members (including Vincent Cassell as the captain), begin a long, arduous quest to reach another part of the failing facility in their pressure suits.

To complicate matters, there are also chittering, tentacled sea creatures, led by a Cthulhu-esque Big Daddy, making passage exceedingly difficult for the stranded aquanauts.

Despite achieving some tight claustrophobic moments, and devoting a generous block of screen-time to Norah strolling about the wreckage in her knickers, Underwater never really rises to the occasion, settling for stock characters in danger from an unknown species and unstable tectonics.

While there is some attempt to add “heart” to the narrative by having Norah dutifully collect mementos from her fallen comrades in order to have something for their families, it reads trite and maudlin.

Without giving away all the particulars of the ending, watching Norah fight so valiantly on behalf of her corporate overlords in an environment they shouldn’t have violated in the first place, leaves a bad aftertaste.

As for the unknown species, Norah wisely obliterates it.

“What a bunch of colonialist, slash and burn bullshit,” my wife complained during the credits. “Yes, by all means, let’s nuke the ocean.”

Leave this one in Davy Jones Locker next to DeepStar Six.

Howl (2015)

If you’re in the market for a pretty good werewolf movie, Howl should do the trick.

It’s an understated thriller, low budget, definitely second billing on a double feature, but effective, efficient storytelling with proper levels of suspense, blood, and carnage.

A British passenger train chugging through the forest is waylaid by an obstruction on the tracks. Joe (Ed Speelers), a fed-up conductor responsible for the safety and welfare of less than a dozen riders, is tasked with finding out what went wrong.

From the looks of things, plenty.

The engineer is missing and there seems to be a large stag tangled in the train’s undercarriage. It’s a full moon and howling can be heard moving closer to the crippled choo-choo.

Most of Howl takes place on the train, where disgruntled passengers ignore Joe’s safety protocols, much to their detriment. Alliances form and crumble as the beast(s) seek to gain entrance and have a quick bite.

Horror Survival Pro Tip: Join forces. There are safety in numbers, a theorem proven correct as the trapped train commuters brutally gang stomp a werewolf into tomato sauce.

As is usually the case, when the group fragments under pressure the slaughter begins in earnest. Conductor Joe does his employers proud, trying till the very end to save lives, but the lad is in over his head.

Directed by Paul Hyett and written by Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler, Howl is played absolutely straight. There are no subtle genre references, no in-jokes, nothing of the sort.

It’s a train under attack by werewolves! A story as old as time. There’s even a romantic subplot. All aboard!

Stoker Hills (2020)

Funny, I thought with a title like Stoker Hills, that there might be vampires in the vicinity.

Nope, not even a nibble, though blood is drained if you pay attention. I’m not advising you to do so.

Three students enrolled in Professor Tony Todd’s community college film class get themselves kidnapped while working on a zombie movie, and must escape the clutches of a fiendish killer in an underground labyrinth.

Ryan (David Gridley), Jake (William Bedford-Hill), and Erica (Steffani Brass) set out with the noblest intentions to create a cinematic hybrid of “The Walking Dead and Pretty Woman.”

Shooting B-roll of a trolling Erica decked out in hooker garb goes south when she gets snatched by a goon in a creepy car. The dufus bros take off in hot pursuit, eventually leading to a secret trailer in the woods, where they too are set upon and abducted.

The camera is found by a fireman and turned over to the cops.

What looks to be a promising setup is soon squandered, as director Benjamin Louis and scenarist Jonah Kuehner unwisely shift gears into the police investigation that follows their disappearance.

We are summarily introduced to a pair of plodding detectives (Eric Etabari and William Lee Scott, the former inexplicably garbed like he’s auditioning for Guys & Dolls) who manage to grind narrative momentum to a screeching halt.

We’re handed scene after scene of these two dull dicks mulling over the found footage for clues, occasionally cutting back to the tied-up victims trying laboriously to escape their shackles, as if to remind us that there’s still a plot that needs resolving here.

The storyline twists and rebounds with their ponderous investigative revelations, including a serial killer with a pig heart (Jason Sweat) in need of fresh blood. The outré details don’t add up to much of anything, until the very last scene.

At that point, you will have the privilege of deciding if Stoker Hills is a clever little film with a “Gotcha” ending, or a low-budget time-waster with the lamest finale since, “Gosh, what a crazy dream!”

It’s an awesome responsibility when you think about it.

Bones and All (2022)

Horror Romance. Seems simple enough, but there are thousands of things that can go wrong, and usually do.

Absence of chemistry between the leads; indulgent editing, inane dialogue, and indifferent art direction, to name a few usual suspects.

Director Luca Guadagnino—along with screenwriter David Kajganich, and cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan—makes magic happen on all fronts in Bones and All, an absorbing and tragic love story, based on a YA novel by Camille DeAngelis.

The moods here shift like unstable weather. We’re following a narrative that’s by turns gruesome, seductive, and visually intoxicating, even when the protagonists are merely rambling down the road, which happens a fair amount during the slow-burning, 2-hour running time.

Or when they’re eating people.

Yes, we are talking about young cannibals in love, but don’t have a cow, man. Weathering the outré scenes is a small price to pay for a unique experience.

As for the subject matter, cannibalism fits snugly into the metaphor drawer under Dark Afflictions.

To say that Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) is a little different than the other girls at her high school, would be a vicious understatement.

While playing slap and tickle with friends at a slumber party, Maren, the new girl, mistakenly bites down on some finger food, forcing she and her nervous daddy (Andre Holland) to quickly relocate—again.

Soon after, Maren awakens to find Pops has abandoned her, leaving behind a cassette tape he made to help her understand her “condition.”

With little cash and no other options, Maren heads to Minnesota in search of her mother’s relatives and hopefully a sense of her own identity.

During her journey she meets Sully (Mark Rylance), a seemingly benign drifter who identifies her as a fellow “eater,” a small cabal of carnivores that strongly prefer human hocks to anything raised on the farm.

Sully, a smiling and helpful ghoul who feeds opportunistically, is a recurring nightmare for Maren, made flesh and bloody by Rylance’s riveting portrayal.

The next “eater” she encounters is Lee (Timothee Chalamet), a wiry skate dude with a lousy dye job driving a stolen blue pickup. This one sticks, and they drive off together like Thelma and Louise on a second date.

Luca Guadagnino makes bold style and story choices throughout Bones and All, and his judgment is razor-sharp. He grants the camera enough room to shape heartbreaking tableaux of faded beauty amidst a backdrop of rural American poverty.

Like Steinbeck characters, somehow retaining their humanity in the face of crushing circumstances, Maren and Lee are devoted and determined to carve out a bloody little life for themselves, no matter the price.

While they bear some resemblance to other fugitive movie couples (Sailor and Lula in Wild At Heart, Caleb and Mae in Near Dark, Kit and Holly in Badlands), these kids are a different breed.

Hunger is present in every word and action. It’s a black current that soaks into the fabric of a strikingly gorgeous film, and the actors, especially Taylor Russell, handle that internal struggle with amazing grace.

My wife (former Theater major, I’ll have you know!) remarked that Russell is flawless, and gives one of the most naturalistic performances she’s seen in recent years.

All that’s based on a single viewing. There will be more to follow.

Bones and All is an unexpected trunk of perilous wonders, with loneliness and loss lurking among shiner coins such as love and freedom.

It’s an emotional risk to sort it all out, but worth taking if we want to get better.

Escape the Field (2022)

I hate waking up in a cornfield with no memory of getting there. So, right away, I was a little reluctant to proceed with Escape the Field, a succinctly titled puzzler from English filmmaker Emerson Moore.

Six people regain consciousness amongst an endless jungle of corn. They’re each equipped with a single item (lantern, matches, water, knife, etc), and together must reason their way out of ear shot.

The field is loaded with booby traps, and there is a killer shrewdly disguised as corn, lurking about and making life miserable for everyone.

Sam (Jordan Clare Robbins), who is clearly the brains of this bunch, quickly devours clues and discovers an evolving map that presumably leads to a less starchy environment.

Joining Sam on her doomed patrol, is Ryan (Shane West, in the Adam Baldwin role), a seething, guilt-ridded soldier; Tyler (Theo Rossi, in the Robert Beltran role), a smiling divorced father who develops a crush on Sam, and Cameron (Tahirah Sharif), an emotionally unstable British intelligence agent.

There are two other people in their little posse, but they don’t do anything except die.

After dodging Corn Man and and assorted deadly pitfalls, Sam begins to see a pattern. Someone is obviously watching their progress through the deadly gauntlet.

But who? And what do they want?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for answers. As more than one person remarks during Escape the Field, “there’s no way out.”

This becomes apparent at around the 30-minute mark, leaving another 58 minutes of futile floundering in the field.

Writer-director Emerson Moore surely should have known that we’d get fed up with all this friggin’ corn.

In the case of Escape the Field, I would stick with the old horror movie adage, “Steer clear of the Moore.”

Watcher (2022)

Holy Hitchcock, Batman!

From its Read Window voyeurism to Julia’s (Maika Monroe) resemblance to classic Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren, Watcher is a first-rate homage to the 20th century’s finest suspense filmmaker.

Best of all, it’s exquisitely crafted by writer-director Chloe Okuno, who orchestrates grinding fear and dread for a serial killer’s potential victim, a woman who knows too much in a country where she doesn’t speak the language.

Julia and her husband Francis (Karl Glusman) have just moved to Bucharest for his work. Julia, a one-time actress, is left to entertain herself in their new apartment for long periods of time while Francis wheels and deals.

Right off the bat, Julia is unnerved by a silhouette in a window across the street, a figure that seems to be fixated in her direction. In what becomes a pattern, she tries to tell Francis about the suspicious person, only to have hubby minimize her fears.

Meanwhile, women alone in their apartments are turning up headless. Yeah, thanks for your concern, Francis! Probably nothing to worry about.

There isn’t an ounce of flab on Watcher. Dialogue is minimal. Each frame is a precision brick in a wall of menace that threatens to fall on Julia at any moment. Precarious angles of endless invention are used to create a perpetual male gaze on Julia, a person seen, but not heard, due to a language (and gender) barrier.

Maika Monroe (It Follows, The Guest) continues to bloom, transcending the genre’s Final Girl status and emerging as a reluctant action hero, correctly channeling frustration and rage into not only self-preservation, but victory.

Make no mistake: in the hands of a lesser actress this film would not have achieved such thrilling peaks. As the unwilling object of a madman’s desire, Monroe is charismatic, capable, and committed to each character moment, as only someone fighting for their life can be.

Julia’s determination to find her tormentor and destroy her victimhood provides serious octane in Watcher, a sleek thriller that both embraces the Hitchcock tradition, and flips the camera back onto the audience (and Hitchcock), as if to ask, “What are you looking at?”

Definitely a Top Ten film of 2022. See it straight away.

Freeze (2022)

Well, let’s see you make a tale of Arctic terror on a microscopic budget!

Written and directed by Charlie Steeds (Winterskin, Death Ranch), a MetFilm grad with an abiding love of bygone horror tropes, Freeze is a Lovecrafty pastiche of Victorian Era exploration that bravely demands your attention, despite being financed by old soda bottles.

Captain Roland Mortimer (Rory Wilton) charts his warship the HMS Innsmouth (hint) to the North Pole in search of his best friend, William Streiner (Tim Cartwright), a fellow sea captain who disappeared two years before in search of a passage through the ice.

It doesn’t take long for the Innsmouth to get frozen in the ice and set upon by Deep Ones, so Mortimer and his intrepid crew of a half-dozen men abandon ship and try their luck on the frozen tundra.

The Arctic region isn’t very large, so Mortimer and company soon discover a massive cave containing a few stiffs from Streiner’s earlier voyage. After that, they discover Streiner himself, who has gone native and joined forces with the so-called “Icthyoids” in a vague scheme of world domination.

All he needs to lead his baggy suited fishmen to victory is his copy of The Necronomicon, which Mortimer thoughtfully provides.

Freeze is old, old-time entertainment that would have worked just as well as a radio play accompanied by scary sound effects and a wheezy organ. Of course, then we’d miss grotty details like Streiner biting his best friend’s fingers off, and admittedly, that’s a fun scene.

Steeds cheerfully peppers the proceedings with DIY practical effects that any Dr. Who fan would endorse, particularly the pesky Icthyoids, who resemble a Sleestack dance company when appearing en masse.

So what can we really say about Freeze? Campy enthusiasm and resourceful story telling can still save the day, if you agree to meet them halfway.

Deadstream (2022)

Now that’s what I’m talking about!

As if to put an exclamation point on my earlier observation that internet adventurers are the new Red Shirts, along comes Deadstream, the Apocalypse Now of found footage horror.

Sean Ruddy (Joseph Winter) is an internet personality who stages dangerous stunts that also manage to be offensive, such as getting smuggled across the Mexican border in the trunk of a car.

After his latest spectacle goes horribly wrong, Ruddy hopes to apologize and move on, but his fans are deserting him in droves, peppering his inbox with destructive criticism.

Comments pop up throughout the movie acting as a sort of Greek chorus to the action, which is plentiful. Even as Sean battles all manner of paranormal entity, the comment string keeps up a barrage of fan posts that are funny, annoying, and even surprisingly useful.

Among my favorite comments: “Glad I’m not you,” “Better start praying,” and “Please sign this petition at Move.org so Sean will stop being be such a pussy.”

In order to atone for a bad call, Ruddy comes clean to his public about the one fear he’s never tackled—ghosts.

So, strapped with all the latest gear thanks to a sponsorship from an energy drink company, the repentant daredevil vows to spend a night in the most haunted house in America—that he can successfully break into without getting arrested.

The lion’s share of Deadstream originates from one of Sean’s cameras that are spread throughout Death House, the site of his viral vigil, or mounted on his person.

Admittedly, this is a long time to be looking up Sean’s nose, but writer-directors Joseph and Vanessa Winter reward our patience by throwing everything but the yeti at our fearful protagonist.

Sean spends an enchanted evening fending off angry spirits, misshapen freaks, and a hot girl named Chrissy (Melanie Stone) who wanders into the chaos.

Like the legendary Don Knotts in The Ghost and Mister Chicken, Joseph Winter delivers an unhinged scaredy-cat performance, that comes garnished with the best girlie shriek of man-terror I’ve heard in a minute.

As Sean Ruddy, a man who will do anything to please the ever-present and increasingly fickle comment string, Winter willfully throws himself into a thankless part, that of sacrificial lamb to his voracious followers.

Ruddy makes himself vulnerable to the dark forces of the house and to his followers. Will the truth set him free?

His unwavering commitment to see the project through drives Deadstream to thoughtful new frontiers that bear examining. For instance, shouldn’t everyone come equipped with a Stupid Things To Do spin board?

Simply in terms of pound-for-pound raw energy, and entertainment bang for the buck, Deadstream is a hot ticket.

I was a wee bit disappointed that the Winters decided to pay homage to Sam Raimi about three-fourths of the way through the film, precisely because they had managed to avoid doing so up to that point.

The Deadites must have a strong union.

Jamie Marks is Dead (2014)

“Adam, you don’t want a dead boy lurking around outside your house, trust me.”

Writer-director Carter Smith distinguishes himself mightily with Jamie Marks Is Dead, a ghost story about friendship and duty from beyond the grave.

Adam McCormick (Cameron Monaghan) is a high school cross country star who becomes curiously attached to the ghost of a murdered classmate, Jamie “Moonie” Marks (Noah Silver).

Marks’ body is found at the riverside by weird goth girl Grace Highsmith (Morgan Saylor), with whom Adam quickly becomes romantically involved. This development leads to the discovery of Marks’ ghost, still shivering and dressed in skivvies, skulking around Grace’s backyard.

“We all have a choice, Adam,” Grace tells him. “I choose not to see him.”

Driven by pity for Marks, a friendless boy routinely tormented by his fellow jocks, Adam vows to help the wayward spirit, giving him clothes and a place to live in his own closet.

Adam reaches out because he’s lonely, too. His own brother Aaron (Ryan Munzert) is a macho douchebag, while his trailer park mama (Liv Tyler) has chosen to share their home with Lucy, the drunk driver (Judy Greer) that put her in a wheelchair.

Adam affectionately nicknames her “the Paralyzer.”

At this point in the narrative, the viewer will surely make assumptions about Adam eventually being forced to disentangle himself from an increasingly needy spook. Smith, who adapted the novel One For Sorrow by Daniel Barzak, avoids the obvious track.

Instead, Adam atones for his callous indifference to the suffering of a fellow soul, by pledging emotional support to someone he never cared for in life.

The action takes place in another one of those blighted, boarded-up little towns that appear bereft of anything resembling empathy or compassion.

But sometimes humanity rises to the occasion.

Jamie Marks is Dead, is a fascinating, somber movie that will surprise a few people, thanks to an unexpectedly hopeful final act. One that allows for a smidgen of light into a 99 percent dreary reality.

My thanks to friend of the blog, Andre Hagestedt, for recommending it. You may want to thank him, too.

Shock Waves (1977)

Long before Dead Snow thawed out a battalion of Nazi zombies, this low-budget creeper, written and directed by Ken Wiederhorn (Eyes of a Stranger, Meatballs II), spent a few decades bouncing around the Late Night Spook Show circuit.

Shock Waves stars horror vets Peter Cushing and John Carradine, as well as Luke Halpin from Flipper, all grown up into a blonde, mustachioed male lead, who must rally a crew of castaways marooned on an island awash in goggled zombies in SS uniforms.

Cushing brings a convincing accent, dandy scar makeup, and complete authority to his role as an exiled Nazi commander forced to live in an abandoned luxury resort on a nameless island somewhere in the ocean.

Guess he couldn’t make it all the way to Brazil.

Cushing patiently awaits the arrival of the soggy soldiers formerly under his command, who should be returning from Davey Jones’ Locker any day now.

Editor’s Note: Cushing plays Admiral Tarkin in Star Wars—the very same year!

John Carradine doesn’t get to do much as Ben, the cranky charter boat captain, but we do get to see him in a bathing suit. (Rrrrowr!)

Comely Brooke Adams stands out as Rose, a tourist who also looks smashing in swimwear.

The underwater photography, particularly when the Nazi zombies snap into formation and smartly march toward the surface, is eerie and strangely captivating, jarringly punctuated by Richard Einhorn’s dissonant electronic score.

No, they don’t eat flesh, but these genetically altered stormtroopers are consumed by a desire to kill, and they have thoroughly adapted to the life aquatic.

So what if they look like a techno band? Good stuff!